Druidic Cultivation | Seven

    Several of the girls who’d touched his arms and hands or stood too closely to whom they perceived to be a beautiful girl of common birth like them blushed and avoided Feng Jiao’s gaze. The envious girls became the confused, the lecherous boys flustered and raged impotently when they realized they’d been gazing at a man, and the overseer who’d calmed Feng Jiao over just stared at him dumbfoundedly. 

    The various sect heads had a different look however. They scooted forward to the edge of their seats to observe the awakening of the only boy currently on stage. Many people were reminded of the nobles’ screening and were jealous of Feng Jiao receiving the undivided attention of the sect scouts. They didn’t realize that, even if there’d been a hundred other boys on that stage with Feng Jiao the sect heads would be more concerned with the boy who could awaken his Qi at the age of ten.

    The overseer opened his mouth and attempted, unsuccessful, to form words. Eventually he spoke, requesting another overseer to take his position because of his lack of Qi. The overseer felt it was unbecoming to admit that he’d exhausted his supply of Qi, but wanted to touch the beautiful boy in front of him even less. Everything about Feng Jiao made the man feel sick to his stomach and caused him to question things he’d never questioned before. 

    A middle aged women took the position of overseer and returned Feng Jiao’s bow before putting her hands on either of his temples and injecting him with Qi. The sensation was nothing like when he circulated Qi through the Qi channels he’d carved, permeating every inch of his body on its way toward his navel. The Qi even ran along another set of channels that he hadn’t carved, almost entirely parallel with the ones he’d made.

The foreign Qi made its home in his spiritual sea, the area where his dantian would eventually form, and started to fill. After several seconds, far longer than anyone had taken to do their awakening previously, his spiritual sea was successfully filled with foreign Qi and his body began to reject it. It was pushed out of the pores on his back where it began misting and forming an image.  

The mist twisted and rose from the ground painting the image of an imposing tree atop of a mountain. The tree was white bark and had leaves like fire and ashes, pushing back against the heavens rather than supporting them. It thirsted for power, causing all who observed it to become parched of mouth and causing them to sweat. They could feel the bloodlust in the tree and knew that if they’d touched it, it would suck them dry.

The mist kept pouring out of Feng Jiao’s back, forming a funnel around the tree that rose into the air and became a black cloud suspended a few feet over the massive tree. Lightning began to strike down at the tree, once then twice then thrice. With every strike of lightning, the flame colored leaves burst into fire until the entire tree eventually burned down. Behind Feng Jiao was a massive pile of ash and charcoal that resembled a rank three failed martial spirit, a cloud pillow that begged to be sit upon. 

The cloud dissipated and faded away into the silence of the crowd. The pile of ashes remained behind Feng Jiao, slowing blowing away into the wind and falling apart until the pile was no taller than his waste. The overseer in front of him started at him with eyes that bored into his soul, her face was flushed with sweat from over exerting herself during his awakening. This was her third year overseeing the awakening ritual and she’d never had to spend that much Qi before. The woman knew the boy wasn’t a dud because she’d felt her Qi drained away while duds always returned the unused energy. Now, with only a pile of ashes, she didn’t know what to pronounce to the crowd 

    As she opened her mouth to give him a grade three martial spirit, the ash began to shift. It didn’t blow away in the wind as it had been previously but started to collapse in on itself, as if it were sitting upon a hole. A clarion cry rang out into the stadium for the second time that day as a small bird hauled itself out of the pile of ash. Everybody who had been frozen by the burning tree was awoken at once, several jumping to their feet in fright.

    It stood two feet tall, with fire colored feathers that sat in a crown upon its head. It had a tail that was as long as its body which appeared to be flames that trailed behind the noble falcon. A bright red falcon stared out of the ash pile for a moment before diving its head back into the pile and prying out a blood red samara seed with a light green seedling poking out of it. It leaped from the pile of ash and landed upon the beautiful boy’s shoulder before staring down observe and staring her down. The tree seed was dropped into the boy’s hand and he clenched his fist, causing it to disappear from sight. He coughed and tilted his head to wake up the overseer.

    “Crouching Grass Village’s Feng Jiao. Martial Spirit, plant race, or beast race, maybe both? I, well I can’t say that I recognize this race at all,” the poor confused woman looked toward the head overseer who just shook his head no and shrugged, “Race is appears to be a far removed variant of a common Kestrel, but with a royal bloodline of some sort. I’m sorry but I really can’t tell what kind of Martial Spirit this is. I got strong vibes for a pure wood affinity but also a pure yang affinity. I am unable to rank this martial spirit, but I would not give it a grade below peak-eighth.”

    The falcon shrieked indignantly at the degrading words, obviously offended at being called a common Kestrel. The overseer flinched and backed up a step as the raptor opened its wings and beat them a few times while ruffling its feathers. It wasn’t until Feng Jiao raised his hand and touched the firebird upon its back that it calmed down. The warm feeling of its back felt extremely familiar to the beautiful boy, a sensation he’d felt many times in the month that the bird was perched in his branches. 

    “Young boy, your talent does not belong in such a small country. Come back with me, Shou Xi, and join the Black Warrior Sect. We will cultivate you well.” The middle-aged man who’d tried to recruit Huang Niao spoke up the moment that the overseer finished. There was a weird gleam in his eye as he looked down at Feng Jiao, but young Jiao couldn’t deny that his sect was a powerful one.

    “That is ridiculous, come with me and join the Maned Yellow Tiger Sect. We may not be as powerful as a foreign sect,” The old man practically spit out the word foreign, “but you will not lack for cultivation resources.” After he made his case, many more sects also spoke up, bidding against each other out loud rather than amongst themselves like they usually did. They threw out all pretenses of ego in an attempt to bring the young man back as a disciple. 

    “Esteemed Seniors, this humble junior already has a sect in his heart and has for a long time. If it is not too presumptuous, this junior requests to be sponsored by the God Tree Sect.” Feng Jiao clasped his hands and bowed to the sect scout section before making his case. With his ability to commune with nature, he didn’t think he had to worry about cultivation resources. The name of God Tree Sect, however, could be said to be fated with Feng Jiao.

The other sects felt jilted and upset. Not only had another black horse shown up during this awakening ceremony, but it had once again fallen into another’s hands. First was Huang Niao who turned down all offers and did not inform them where she was headed. Then was the grade eight Qian Bei who’d been accepted into the God Tree Sect. Disregarding the foreign boy who had joined the Black Warrior Sect, this was the third talent that they’d craved to recruit, and it was once again going to the medium sized sect, God Tree!

A tittering laughter sounded out from the sect scouts of God Tree Sect, and one of the charming young women spoke up.

“The God Tree Sect would absolutely love to you have you. It seems that the gods are ushering in a new age of prosperity for us and, considering the phenomenon that accompanied your martial awakening, we could be said to be fated for each other.” She gave all of the larger sects that were eyeing her down a cocky look and raised her eyebrows as to say ‘challenge me on that, I dare you’ before continuing, ”Please approach us after the finishing of the martial tourney.” She re-took her seat with a radiant smile upon her face and Feng Jiao walked over to the opposite side of the stage after bowing in thanks to the overseer. 

The firebird upon Feng Jiao’s shoulder leaned forward to look him in the eye before re-entering his spiritual sea, where Feng Jiao could feel it. His only friend had been returned to him or, rather, had been a part of him the entire time. Feng Jiao couldn’t be any happier as he stood apart from the group of boys and waited for the ceremony to finish.